Pursue their nymphs in happier loves than ours.”
You find the mood clear cut in the Venetian nobleman and prelate, Pietro Bembo, both in his Asolani and in the separate poems. These were being handed about in Giorgione’s time, from 1500 on. Thus Bembo sings of the shepherd’s life:
“Tryphon, who in place of ministrants and lackeys,
Loggias and marbles, woven gold and purple,
Lovest about thee willows leafy, cloister
Of joyous hillocks, plants and rivulets—
Well may the world admire thee.”
Naturally the denizens of such paradises live and dress in a state of nature. The nymphs are lightly clothed and readily discard their slight draperies for the joys of the bath, which they considerately take within the range of their shepherd swains. Bembo warmly praises those “courteous garments” which do not too much hide the fair throat and bosom, and roundly curses more churlish concealing fashions.
Sannazaro describes with a confusing mixture of metaphors what may be called a fortunate bath fall.
“Leading one day my herds beside a stream,